1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to personal streaming media broadcasters, and in particular to streaming media from a media source input to a client device over a network.
2. Background of the Invention
While people spend a great deal of time watching television programming and other forms of audio-visual (A/V) content, they are also spending an increasing amount of time interfacing with computing devices such as personal computers, personal digital assistants, mobile phones, dedicated multimedia devices, and other devices that, like the traditional television, include a display. These types of computing devices allow people to be increasingly mobile, but this mobility reduces the time people spend at home in front of their televisions. It would therefore be beneficial to enable people to enjoy their television programming and other forms of A/V content they now receive at home on these computing devices as well, regardless of location and without dependence on physical connections.
This ability would enable several desirable applications. For example, a user might want to access and control television and other regularly consumed A/V content from a personal computer (desktop as well as notebook computers) or other computing devices around the home via the user's local network in the home. Since cable, satellite, and other sources of television content typically enter the house at a few discrete locations, allowing access to the content over a home network gives the user more freedom to enjoy the content throughout the home. Another possible application would be to enable a user to access and control television and other A/V content from any number of remote networks where a broadband connection is available to the user (e.g., at an airport, at work, at school, in a hotel, in a cafe, at an acquaintance's house). Yet another application would be to enable a user to access and control television and other A/V content from a mobile phone or other computing devices that can be connected to a wide area network (e.g., GPRS, W-CDMA, CDMA-2000, 1XRTT, 1XEVDO, and the like). In various applications, users are likely to want to access their media content stored on devices, such as personal computers and other devices having storage, from remote networks. Nevertheless, network bandwidth and other limitations have made it difficult to provide an effective and enjoyable remote media experience for the user.
But traditional streaming media solutions do not enable these applications in any effective way; moreover, they suffer from technical limitations that would prevent their use in personal media broadcasting applications like those described above. Accordingly, it would be desirable to enable users to access their A/V content from any of a variety of remote locations inside or outside the home, as such content is currently available only from locations in the home that traditionally receive and play it (e.g., a television set).